Lili's first tank journal

[Lili]

I love this hobby and I am addicted to it! I am new and I set up my 125l Juwel Rio tank 17.12. 2019. I immediately bought some plants and decor (and black passenger pond snails that I felt too sorry for to kill them). I love the look of a heavily planted tank. It seemed like I had a bacteria bloom 3 days later as the water was crystal clear and then suddenly cloudy. I did a partial water change and all was ok.

I am impatient so 4 days since buying the tank, I decided to do a fish in cycle and bought 3 bronze and 3 panda cories and an assassin snail I call Gary to munch on the snails. I love Cory antics, funny little personalities. They looked very happy to have their own big tank instead of being crammed up with 20 other cories! After buying them, I noticed one Cory was missing a pectoral fin entirely. It has not grown back yet. He behaves normal so, whatever. I fed them spirulina wafers every 2 or 3 days and did 30% water changes twice per week to avoid ammonia spikes, cleaned the filter only twice since day 1 in tank water so I would not kill the bacteria. Cories also gobble up all the food immediately!

A week ago I bought a nice pearl gourami and dried daphnias he didnt like. Bought him some granules instead. He seems fine, just loves to glass surf. I accidentally dunked in a big chunk of bloodworms. I got scared but I observed all the fish happily sucking them up within the next 40 minutes. The cories became SO plump! I was worried of health issues but they seemed fine and hungry again the next day. Now I try to feed them every day or every other day.

Yesterday I bought 5 cute male guppies. Very lively fish that have a blue glow like neons, I was pleasantly surprised! 2 of them were fighting for a while but they are peaceful now and all the inhabitants go crazy after flakes.

The pond snails grow FAST... I wanna avoid an infestation so I will buy Gary some pals to share food with.

I would like to buy a red male swordtail, I find them beautiful! Also some cherry shrimp since I have never seen anyone around me with them and I want to see their behavior + some moss for them (maybe java moss or create a nice carpet of some sorts). I think that will be enough as a stock for a 125l tank but I will wait since I do not wanna add too many fish in a short period of time.

I had a minor diatom bloom but it is gone now. I do have some green hair algae now though.

On the other hand, my plants aren't doing so well... some have white top leaves, holes, new leaves are small and light green. My water lettuce is growing but also melting and seems like rotting too I hope this is because the tank is new and without enough fish poop to feed on yet... I also read my gravel should be deeper so I bought more gravel I will dunk in there during my next water change (I am gonna change water once per week from now on). I will wait some time... maybe the plants will start thriving. If not, I will find a solution.

What could I do to improve my set up? And do you like it?

 

[kallililly1973]

Welcome here. Tank looks great. A coupe things i'd suggest is most importantly a test kit especially doing a fish-in cycle. I prefer the API liquid freshwater kit over test strips cheaper in the long run and most strips don't test ammonia which is very bad for fish. Also for your plants you need to feed them just like you feed your fish. I would suggest a good all-in-one fert such as Nilog ThriveC if your not running co2 and ThriveS if your planning on adding shrimp. Even though they claim all their ferts are shrimp safe. And I would also get a pack of root tabs and put a couple pieces around your stem and root feeding plants. If your getting some algae you can try to cut your light time down to 4-6 hours a day for a week or so to see if that helps. That's about all I can think of. Good luck with your new setup. I'm sure others will chime in with some other advice and suggestions!!

 

[Lili]

Thank you! I bought Tetra Pantastart root tabs and placed them around according to the instructions. I have tetra test strips but unfortunately, they do not test for ammonia. I asked my LFS for ammonia testers. They showed me all the testers they have, none of them tested ammonia . Yesterday I went to look for liquid plant ferts. Bought a locally made brand. I read about it on the internet and was full of awful reviews saying it is only full of phosphates and nitrates and did not help the plants. I did not even risk trying it. I am looking for another fertilizer, problem is, tetra is like the only brand my LFS sells. It seems like I will have to buy ferts and test kits online.

 

[kallililly1973]

Thank you! I bought Tetra Pantastart root tabs and placed them around according to the instructions. I have tetra test strips but unfortunately, they do not test for ammonia. I asked my LFS for ammonia testers. They showed me all the testers they have, none of them tested ammonia . Yesterday I went to look for liquid plant ferts. Bought a locally made brand. I read about it on the internet and was full of awful reviews saying it is only full of phosphates and nitrates and did not help the plants. I did not even risk trying it. I am looking for another fertilizer, problem is, tetra is like the only brand my LFS sells. It seems like I will have to buy ferts and test kits online.

I hope u can find an ammonia test kit its very important and also a good plant fert it will help your plants quite a bit. Good luck!!

 

[StarGirl]

See if your lfs has Seachem Prime water conditioner. It will make the ammonia harmless to fish for 48 hours while you cycle. I use the Thrive ferts too and they are super easy. I use the thrive c with my Amano shrimp and they seem fine. I'm not sure about fancier shrimps though. I would do water changes more than once a week until you are cycled. You have to keep the ammonia levels down as much as you can.

 

[Lili]

Thanks everyone!

I quickly realized I had the light on for too long (like 16 hrs) but nowadays I cut back to 10 hours and the diatoms are gone.

See if your lfs has Seachem Prime water conditioner. It will make the ammonia harmless to fish for 48 hours while you cycle. I use the Thrive ferts too and they are super easy. I use the thrive c with my Amano shrimp and they seem fine. I'm not sure about fancier shrimps though. I would do water changes more than once a week until you are cycled. You have to keep the ammonia levels down as much as you can.

I did not see any seachem products. I did find them online though, in my country, so if I do not find any other fish stores nearby with Seachem, I will most likely just order online. For now I am using Tetra Aquasafe and it removes chlorine well. I am reading about Thrive and Seachem Flourish, seems like Thrive is better for me. It lacks Ca but my water is very hard so that would be no problem. It has a little bit more copper than Flourish has but seems like a negligible amount anyway. I will buy Seachem Prime too while I am at it, and an ammonia tester.

I will go back to water changes twice a week, just to be sure.

 

[Lili]

I got 6 cherry shrimp yesterday! 2 of them are nice plump and red, though I do not think they are fully grown? The other 4 ones are clear. One of the reds seems like she is pregnant too! I was cleaning the filter today.. it didnt even take 24 hours for them to decide to move into my internal filter! It is a juwel bioflow 3.0. It has grills on the sides where they go in. Unfortunately, the design of this filter is so weird that I cannot reach in to see how many of them are there, I can only see them through the grills on the sides. I saw one of the reds moving inside the filter space. Once I was done cleaning the filters, I saw those 2 red ones outside the filter so I guess they can go in and out as they please (I hope!), atleast while the filter is turned off. I see them casually walking through the grills from the outside, so I do not think the filter is strong enough to suck them in. My only concern is .. what if they grow bigger eventually, so big that they would not be able to come out of the filter? I have never had shrimp before so I can't tell if they are fully matured or not. And what about baby shrimp in the filter...

 

[aussieJJDude]

The shrimp are likely to find a way to live within the filter. With the design of the filter, there's not much you can do to modify it so its shrimp safe IMO.


As for the shrimp, they likely to be mature or close to it. The females are bigger, and tend to be more intense in colouration. Males are smaller, and tend to be more plain/clear.

~~~~~~~
One thing I would suggest is trying to get a 'meaty' sinking pellet for the cories. The cories are more on the carnivorous side of things, and would appreciate meater foods rather than the spirulina tablets (a mistake I found in the past!)



Tank does look amazing however!

 

[Lili]

The shrimp are likely to find a way to live within the filter. With the design of the filter, there's not much you can do to modify it so its shrimp safe IMO.


As for the shrimp, they likely to be mature or close to it. The females are bigger, and tend to be more intense in colouration. Males are smaller, and tend to be more plain/clear.

~~~~~~~
One thing I would suggest is trying to get a 'meaty' sinking pellet for the cories. The cories are more on the carnivorous side of things, and would appreciate meater foods rather than the spirulina tablets (a mistake I found in the past!)



Tank does look amazing however!

Oh.. I hope they do not end up just picking my filter clean all the time haha! I would like to grow a shrimp colony slowly. I am ordering a carpeting plant so they would feel safer and did not feel the need to hide so often. I wanted a carpet plant anyway, I think it really fits my aquarium. I ordered a bunch of other mid section plants cause almost all the plants I have right now are for the back. I want my aquarium heavily planted! I bought the Tetra shrimp cory wafers but they do not seem to like them . What I have been doing instead, is dipping into water a couple of hard granules which have animal protein in them as well, let them soften up a bit, and then just throw them into the aquarium. My other fish do not like them, only the cories go after them once they are soft enough. They sink fast too.

 

[Lili]

A little update! I got helanthium tenellum and bacopa australis today, with easylife root sticks and seachem flourish. I hope my plants will thrive.

I also got 6 neon tetras and a additional male guppy and 3 more assassin snails because the pond snail population is growing fast. Could I add more fish into my tank? Would love to have even more species! And I am looking to buy more interesting plants. I have a thread algae problem but now that I have ferts, hopefully the problem will diminish.

My cories are incredibly picky about their food! They don't like any type of sinking wafers anymore, they eat leftover flakes and bloodworms 2x week. I also feed my fish 2x day, small amounts. I hope this is enough for the cories. Occasionally I still try sinking some wafers for them but they don't touch them..

 

[Lili]

Another update! I got a pond snail problem because I have hair algae. I am currently on the 2nd day of my blackout, hoping I would make the algae go away and cut off the pond snail's food source. It does not seem to help, I peeked in today. My plants just looked sad but with hair algae on them. I bought 2 SAE babies as well, I am attaching a picture of them, and today when I peeked in during the blackout, I saw a small panda cory baby!! I never expected my 3 panda cories to breed!